Diver Pulls Evidence From Well

January 15, 2000|By TINA MCCLOUD Daily Press

MIDDLESEX — A State Police diver was called in to search for evidence in a well in Middlesex, but he didn't have to get wet.

Instead, diver Mark Fowler and Senior Special Agent Jim Huddle used a magnet and a grappling hook Thursday to recover what they were looking for: the gun believed to have been used in an armed robbery and the clothes the suspect is believed to have worn during the crime, said Investigator Bruce Boles of the Middlesex Sheriff's Officer.

The joint investigation started last summer. Then, on Dec. 29, police found stolen goods valued at an estimated $3,000 in a vacant house in the Wake area.

On Jan. 5, they charged David H. Browder, 19, of Topping, with the August armed robbery of Tall Chief Market and with breaking into three Middlesex homes.

In the past few days, Browder told officers that he had thrown the gun and clothes from the market crime into an old well at the house where the stolen goods were found.

On Thursday the troopers suspended a large magnet - Boles said about half the size of a toaster - on a rope and brought up a .38-caliber revolver. They used a grappling hook to hoist up a duffle bag containing a ski mask, gloves and clothing Browder said he had worn during the robbery.

Boles said it was about 16 feet to the top of the water in the well; the water was about 5 feet deep, he said.

Boles said he also has recovered a patrol-car full of items from a house in Kilmarnock where Browder was staying before he was arrested.

Boles had gone there Wednesday looking only for a Middlesex High School ring, but "my whole car was full of stolen property when I left,'' he said. He came away with several thousand dollars worth of electronics and other things.

Boles said Browder has implicated himself in two house break-ins in Kilmarnock, an additional one in Middlesex and one in Northumberland.

Browder told police he pawned other stolen items in Richmond. Boles said he's trying to get law enforcement officers from the other jurisdictions together to go to the pawnshop and haul back whatever is left.

Boles said he will charge Browder with breaking and entering and grand larceny in the latest Middlesex crime, and he expects charges will be placed by the other jurisdictions.

Browder is being held at the Middle Peninsula Regional Security Center.

Tina McCloud can be reached at (804) 642-1746 or by e-mail at tmccloud@dailypress.com